I think Martha would be best served to put in her five months starting tomorrow, followed by her five months in-house time. She could be out of jail by Christmas and go on with her life. She would be a basically free woman by late next May. Two years of appeals are a waste of time and a lot more hell for M.S. Or so it seems to me.

Mark- !!! Who cares if she goes to jail-it won't be a REAL jail;probably be minimum security if that!! Oh no, THAT would be in Canada-maybe in the U.S. she will get a kind-of tough jail!!!!!! And that small of a fine-pennies to her!!! She will survive just fine no matter what she does!!!

Martha, like many other people of power and influence, is a victom of her own greed and arrogance. She simply believed she was above doing things like the rest of the world. Martha Stewart started her career as a successful stockbroker. She is the president of a publicly traded company. She was a board member of the NY Stock exchange.
She darn well knew better. For $65,000 she felt she could get away with insider trading and felt she could bluff , huff and puff her way through an investigation once caught.
All she needed to say was, "oh, you're right, I should have realized trading based on inside information was wrong. I'm so sorry, how can I makes amends for it".
Instead she huffed and puffed, lawyed herself up and thought she could buy her way out. I have very little sympathy for Martha Stewart.
They have a nice bunk bed and a jump suit waiting for Martha up in Danbury, just a short hop up route 7 for all her Westport friends to go visit.
Is it obvious how I feel about Martha?

Every once in a while the government has to make an example of people to put the fear of God in everyone else. Now I don't want to inject gender into this thing, but I'm sure It didn't upset the "good old boy" thinking. As far as I'm concerned, I think it's more relevent that a key witness for the government committed perjury in his testimony, but somehow didn't affect the fairness of the trial. Oh I know the testimony in question wasn't the nail in the coffin testimony, but it's just like a witness saying something on the stand and then the judge telling the jury to disregard the statement. How do you get the jury to really erase that from their mind once it's out there? And in this case, the perjury wasn't exposed until after the verdict. And yet the judge decided this wasn't a tainted trial. Now, I don't have any love for Martha Stewart and I never even knew much about her before this trial, but I just hate these double standards that have become common place in government these days. If this was a capital murder trial, it would have been declared a mistrial at the first hint of perjury. One giant waste of money to let the people know that we're earning your tax dollars whether it's in your interest or not. This will give you good old boys something to joke about over drinks. Have fun.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for Martha Stewart. She commited a crime, she tried to obstruct justice, and she showed no remorse. Five months in jail? Pooh! Basically, she got away with it. That's a crime in itself. So far as I am concerned it, just shows what a joke our legal system is when a celebrity and a very rich woman gets her fingers slapped, but a nobody like me would get 40 yrs. in jail.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention to those of you who seem to know all about this stuff, she wasn't charged with insider trading and that's not what she was found guilty of either. (Just to set the record straight)

They ought to take her, the Enron crooks and anyone else that pulls this stuff and send them to Siberia for 40 yrs..that is what the common man would get.. Maybe she could really decorate an igloo to suit her.

I too don't think that she should have gotten off without some sort of penalty, but I don't think jail is the answer. With all her money, power, connections, and business savy, why not have her start a not-for-profit human services corporation? Maybe something for battered women, or a homeless shelter, or a hospice. Spending tax $$'s to the tune of $2,000 a month to house her doesn't seem like much sense. She certainly could do more productive stuff with her time. For that matter, all these corporate crooks could do this. The government could start a new social services department, closely monitored, and have all these crooks run it. But not handle the money. They all seem to have business smarts, just not morals. As for the $$ penalty, it was not enough. She had to pay $30,000, but saved $60,000 in the transaction. Granted she took a much greater hit with all the legal expenses, loss of profits, etc., but that is her own fault. Funny part is that she sold at $60 and the stock today is trading at $80.

Martha had many fans(not me)and five months in jail seems rather light and house arrest okay.. but the comments she made on the Court House steps takes the "cake". and I heard many commentators on the radio calling her absolutely arrogant.http://www.boston.com/business/artic...de_courthouse/

I think if the sentences were converted into the next higher unit of measurement (years) it would be more appropriate. The good news is that in the Federal system there is no time off for good behavior.

__________________
Doug
Crown Princess March 2017
Explorer of the Seas October 2013
Caribbean Princess July 2006, May 2010 & November 2012
Monarch of the Seas November 2008
Crown Princess November 2007
Celebrity Zenith November 2005
Enchantment of the Seas August 2004

Its nice she gets to stay in house arrest for so long....should give her plenty of time to come up with more crappy decorating ideas. I bet she will rearrange her pillows on her couch 10000000000000 times.

As a matter of fact, I, being of the male gender,and meaning no reflection on anyone who posted here, take pride in the fact that I am not, as the expression goes, a male chauvinist pig or someone who thinks women are second class citizens who don't deserve equal treatment under the law. And I certainly don't think Martha Stewart should grovel in the face of this injustice. This verdict and the trial leading up to it was nothing more than a travesty of justice. Her stock broker, who was also found guilty, is held to a different standard as a broker. Martha was just an investor like you or I, with the exception that she's a big fish and we're not. The government wouldn't have even given us a second look. And there it is; the double standard.

Kudos to WhiteKnight. He is hitting the nail right on the head. One could speculate that she may have made an enemy/enemies in high places and got slammed hard for lying (not insider trading) to the Feds.

When asked how she was going to cope with going to prison by Barbara Walters, Martha Stewart invoked Nelson Mandela. That really ticked me off. How she could even think the two cases are remotely similar is ridiculous. How about comparing herself to Leona Helmsley?

The problem is Martha still doesn't believe she did anything wrong. It wasn't her initial problem that got her into trouble...it was lying to federal investigators. Even if she wasn't guilty of the first, she was found guilty of the second. Perhaps if she had been more contrite or remorseful regarding her actions, she would not have received the jail time.

And even in a Club Fed country club lockup, her attitude is probably not going to do her any good at all.

I just saw a piece of tape of her outside the courthouse today urging people to keep buying her magazines. Unbelievable.

Leona Helmsley is a good analogy. Fundamentally, I think Stewart is funny, except I also realize that she's really pretty sad. Situations like this always remind me of what money won't ever buy. It will never buy integrity, humility, or real friendship and respect.

The issue that I have is not that Martha created a billion dollar company; was a perfectionist who alienated herself and was probably a tyrant of a boss. If you look at the majority of CEO's of billion dollar companies you will find the same type of personality.

What I have an issue with is that she was on the board of the NYSE, a CEO of a publicly traded company and a former stock broker. She was required both legally and ethically to hold herself to a higher standard and did not. Any impropriety or hint of impropriety in regard to securities was something she needed to stay away from like the plague. This shows that while she may be a great businessperson she became overcome by her power and was corrupted by it and felt that she was above the law.

It is similar to Richard Nixon. It was not the act or not that was their downfall it was lying about what occurred afterward that destroyed them.

Having said that I feel that the punishment fits the crime and that she has been penalized in more ways than just legally and she should just take the sentence, serve her time and then try to regrow what she has left.

BTW: AR: K-Mart stock dropped 2% today. I think it was because their margins weren't high enough for the striped sheets. :-)

Take care,
Mike(Who hopes Kenneth Lay get 170 years)

__________________Cruisemates Community Leader/Moderator

"There is a great difference between being well traveled and just having been to many places." ~Me

Location: Wisconsin....about 100 miles south of the Frozen Tundra and 70 miles east of Camp Randall

Posts: 9,745

Re: OT: Martha Stewart going to jail

I agree with Pea totally. She LIED about it.............she was not convicted for insider trading but for obstruting justice...she LIED about what she did........and as a former stockbroker and CEO of a multi million dollar company she KNEW better. She knew that the penalty she would have received for just being honest would be much smaller than what she is receiving now - and 200+ of her former employees might still be employed. But , her ego would not let her.....she decided $63,000 was more important to her in the long run than honesty and duty to her employees.

It is a funny thing about our so called justice system. The former president of the United States lied under oath and nothing happened to him. Why should anything happen to anyone else who lies under oath. Some of you feel she is of the upper crust, what about Clinton? Who is really upper crust and where is the real justice?

Martha Stewart's time would have been better served giving the so called under crust in this country, her time and insight to women or men starting their own businesses.
She serves none of us while she sits in jail.

If a president of the United States doesn't go to jail, why should anyone else.